[CrimsonTide4]

Bush Gives Saddam 48 Hours to Flee Iraq
20 minutes ago

By RON FOURNIER, AP White House Correspondent

WASHINGTON - President Bush (news - web sites) on Monday gave Saddam Hussein (news - web sites) a 48-hour deadline to flee Iraq (news - web sites) or face a U.S.-led invasion, saying American forces will wage war "at a time of our choosing."

The president, commander in chief of 250,000 U.S. troops poised at the borders of Iraq, addressed the nation at 8 p.m. EST.

In the White House speech, Bush said the U.S. tried to resolve the crisis peacefully, but "we are not dealing with peaceful men."

An intense White House debate over whether to establish a timetable was settled hours before the president's speech.

"It boils down to the president is giving Saddam Hussein 48 hours to get out of town," Rep. Ike Skelton, D-Mo., said after he and other lawmakers met with the president and his advisers at the White House earlier. Skelton said of the likelihood of Saddam leaving, "I don't think he will. I don't think anyone thinks he will."

"The diplomatic window has now been closed," White House spokesman Ari Fleischer (news - web sites) declared Monday morning, just 12 hours after Bush's return from an Atlantic island summit with his allies from Britain and Spain.


A quick round of telephone calls Sunday night and Monday morning confirmed what aides said Bush had concluded before the summit: The allies' U.N. resolution was doomed to fail.


He ordered the measure withdrawn to avoid an embarrassing defeat, then gave the go-ahead for a long-planned ultimatum address.


The American public, by a 2-1 margin, generally supports military action against Iraq to remove Saddam, a slight increase from recent weeks, according to a CNN-USA Today-Gallup poll out Monday. Opinion was evenly divided when people were asked about an attack without an attempt to gain U.N. backing.


Bush asked Australia to participate in a "coalition of the willing" preparing for war against Iraq, Prime Minister John Howard said.


White House and congressional sources said Bush intends to send Congress a bill seeking more than $70 billion to pay for the war.


Seven months ago, Secretary of State Colin Powell (news - web sites) helped persuade Bush to seek U.N. approval for military action despite the objections of anti-Saddam hawks like Vice President Dick Cheney (news - web sites).


His diplomacy derailed, Powell sounded ready to turn to war. "The moment of truth is arriving," said the retired Army general was chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff during the 1991 Persian Gulf War (news - web sites) led by Bush's father.


He said the only way war could be avoided was for "Saddam Hussein and his immediate cohorts to leave the country."


Senior White House officials said they did not expect Saddam to seek exile. Thus, Bush planned to be at war within a matter of days, they said.


Powell suggested that even an 11th-hour effort by Saddam to disarm wouldn't avoid war.


"I can think of nothing Saddam Hussein could do diplomatically," he said. "He had his chance."